Hello
and welcome to the home and support page for the tutorial series,
"Using Old Source Code!"
Last
Update 07-20-2020
About
My
video tutorial series, "Using Old Source Code", shows you
how to set up your IDE to compile and run the code from old
programming books. I have looked for this information many times over
the years. Nobody else provided it, to my knowledge, so I am. For now
this series is focused on Andre LaMothe's, "Tricks of the
Windows Game Programming Gurus." I take you step by step through
setting everything up CodeBlocks, Visual Studio Express C++ 2008 and
Visual Studio Express C++ 2010. In the end we get the first game,
Freakout, up and running, with only one change to two source code
files, the removal of a .h. Nothing else is needed.
The
operating system I am using is Windows XP SP3. The version of DirectX
I am using is DirectX 9, the June 2010 release. While these
instructions may have some value for Windows Vista - Windows 8 and
Visual Studio Express C++ 2012 I can make no guarantees. However
there should be no problem following along using Visual Studio
Express C++ 2005. Additionally what I teach here should apply to
DirectX setup for any other IDE at least in general, although the
user should know their compiler well enough to adapt everything as
needed.
Later
I will probably work on Michael Dawson's, "Beginning 3D Game
Programming in C++" and then perhaps Hawkins and Astle's,
"OpenGL Game Programming." After that, once my programming
and math skills are sufficient, I will turn to Vaughan Young's
"Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX" and Greg
Snook's, "Real-Time 3D Terrain Engines using C++ and DirectX9."
I have all these old programming books, and I intend to get the code
running from all of them.
My
purpose here is simple. To teach programmers to become intimately
familiar with their compilers so they can use any book, no matter how
old, and if the code is even remotely usable, figure out how to get
it to compile and run. They should also be able to do this on any
computer that can run Windows XP as there are no special hardware
requirements like Pixel Shader 2.0 for XNA 3.1.
For
those who want to learn to program with a focus on games they should,
through this ongoing series, find plenty of books they can now use.
It is my hope that one of them will take all they have learned and
create a comprehensive course in programming with an emphasis on the
fun stuff - games. I would like to see the old teaching paradigm for
programming fade away like the horrible nightmare it is.
7-20-2020
Apparently
there is still interest in this old series as recently as 6 months
ago. I am not sure if I can retrace my steps and update everything
with DirectX 11. I have a lot of other irons in the fire, as it were,
and I have stopped trying to do anything at all with programming.
That
said I have found copies of many books covering this topic, and will
go and hunt down any source code I can find, placing links to it
here. I have downloaded a variety of IDEs and may see if I can get
some of the code from these old books to compile and run. A lot has
changed from DirectX 9 to DirectX 11, and Windows 7, the OS I am
mainly using, is no longer supported.
The
videos have been moved to my new channel, BlissTech. I may move any
files to their own Google Drive page. For now I will start updating
the information shared here, and fixing all the broken links.
Using
Old Source Code Playlist
Archive
Programs
AllCode
I have
updated this again, removing the WindowsSDK files from the main
include and lib directories. It just seems to be screwing everything
up, so now it is in its own directory and you can add the files you
need. I built up everything from DirectX 2005-2014 and OpenGL
1998-2014. I have combined only the 32-bit versions of DirectX and
OpenGL into the include and lib directories.
As of
right now, if you are using Code::Blocks MinGW version, I advise that
you copy the .dll files into CodeBlocks/MinGW/bin. You may also copy
the include files into CodeBlocks/MinGW/include, but be sure to move
the gl files into CodeBlocks/MinGW/include/GL after doing so. Those
files are:
gl.h
GLAux.h
glcorearb.h
glext.h
glu.h
glui.h
glut.h
glxext.h
wglext.h
I have
tested this and found it to work for "OpenGL Game Programming"
and "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus." The
latest video in the "Using Old Source Code Series", episode
11 as of this writing, covers this. The next step is to get it
working with "3D Game Programming with DirectX 9" and
"Create A Multiplayer FPS in DirectX."
My
whole goal here is to make it so any proper C++ code, no matter how
archaic the libraries it used may be, can be compiled and run with
little if any alteration. Sure, GLaux.gl is an archaic way of working
with textures in OpenGL. Certainly the code that uses this should be
updated with a better and more current library.
But if
you are just starting out in programming, and trying to work your way
through a book, you do not have the experience and knowledge you need
to make those alterations. Which can cause a lot of frustration,
especially if you paid a good $30-$50 or so for one of these books
and just want to work through it. Your focus should be on learning
how to program, not fixing archaic code! So that is why AllCode
exists.
If
anyone out there understands what I am trying to do here and is
willing to help in any way, please contact me! All feedback,
especially the constructive and helpful kind, is welcome!
AllCode Download
IDEs
(Integrated Development Environments):
DirectX
SDK
DotNet
Source
Code
VC
Redist
Visual
Studio
Windows
7 SDK
Windows
10 SDK
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